JORDAN SOLO ON PIPELINES

Jordan to go solo with Red Sea to Dead Sea pipeline Sun Sep 27, 2:44 pm ET

AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan has decided to go it alone and build a two-billion-dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea without help from proposed partners Israel and the Palestinian Authority, an official told AFP.Jordan is thirsty and cannot wait any longer,said Fayez Batayneh, the country's chief representative in the mega-project to provide drinking water and begin refilling the Dead Sea, which is on course to dry out by 2050.Israel and the Palestinians have raised no objection to Jordan starting on the first phase by itself, Batayneh said.The first stage, at an estimated cost of two billion dollars, will begin in 2010 and should be completed in 2014 on a BOT (build, operate, transfer) basis,he said.The plan is for the pipeline to draw off 310 million cubic metres (10.5 billion cubic feet) of water each year, of which 240 million will be fed into the desalination plant at the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba, enabling an annual production of 120 million cubic metres of drinking water.Batayneh said the remaining 190 million cubic metres will be channelled towards the Dead Sea, the saltiest natural lake on the planet and the lowest point on the earth's surface.

Jordan, where the population of six million people is expanding by 3.5 percent a year, is recognised as one of the 10 driest countries in the world, with desert covering 92 percent of its territory.The kingdom relies mainly on winter rain for its water needs, which are projected to reach 1.6 billion cubic metres in 2015.Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan agreed in 2005 on the outlines of a project to channel two billion cubic metres of water a year via a 200-kilometre (120-mile) canal in order to restore the level of the Dead Sea, produce fresh water and generate electricity.The total cost of the scheme has been estimated at 11 billion dollars.

Arabs and Israelis tell clashing tales of the land By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 27, 12:00 am ET

RAMOT MENASHE PARK, Israel – Israeli and Palestinian hikers are taking to the hills in the footsteps of their ancestors — deploying maps, holy texts and walking boots in the long-running battle for control of the Holy Land.In Israel and the West Bank, bands of enthusiasts trek over the same paths mentioned in antiquity and past villages abandoned to wars. But Israeli and Palestinian hikers mostly emphasize their attachment to the land and ignore each other's historical footprints.In northern Israel's Ramot Menashe Park, guide Innon Kahalany recently led a group past pungent fig trees, bringing to life characters of the Old Testament, which he calls Israel's first guide book. He vividly described how on nearby Mount Carmel, the Jewish prophet Elijah challenged the priests of the heathen god Baal.But his entranced hikers were not told that they were standing near the ruins of seven Arab villages destroyed during the 1948 Mideast war when Israel became a state and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out or fled.Kahalany said he speaks of those events carefully, if at all.People don't like a history lesson, I try to make it easy,he said.Some 45 miles south, in the West Bank, Palestinian guide Saleh Jawad led a dozen hikers up a grass knoll to the ruins of the ancient village of Khirbet Kfar Ana, now used as grazing lands.His route was dictated not by the distant past, but by the reality of the modern conflict: He avoided sealed-off Israeli military zones and checkpoints, and stayed away from the Jewish settlements that dot the area.

Settlers are free to roam the West Bank, which is mostly ruled by Israel and which Palestinians hope will be part of their future state. On the other hand, Jawad and other Palestinians would have a hard time getting a permit to enter Israel.At Khirbet Kfar Ana, Jawad described how the village was most likely destroyed a century ago by the Turks who then ruled Palestine and were upset at the villagers for harboring bandits. The conversation quickly fell to tracing a Palestinian connection to the land from biblical times.This is exactly what this struggle is about,said Jawad.It's the feeling that I'm walking on the land of my ancestors.Many Palestinians assert they are the descendants of the biblical Canaanites, who inhabited the Holy Land before the Hebrews conquered it.We never left the land and they can see that,said George Rishmawi, a hiker who leads a walking group of Palestinian eco-tourists.Hiking — from school trips to weekend getaways — is far more ingrained in Israelis than in Palestinians. Pioneering Zionists established a hiking culture to strengthen the connection between ancient Israel and new Jewish immigrants, said Yael Guter, professor of Israel Studies at Bar Ilan University.The same impulse drives the Palestinians, but their recreational hiking is a nascent pastime, hampered by the Israeli restrictions on movement and their own cultural taboo that regards walking as something only poor people do.Jawad's three-year-old group was established by environmentalists, including Raja Shehadeh, who wrote a book about the diminishing trails of the West Bank.

Rishmawi has created the Palestine Trail — part of a larger regional project called the Abraham Path, a planned 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) route that would follow the route of the patriarch revered by both Jews and Muslims from Turkey, where he reputedly first heard the call to God, to his burial place in the West Bank city of Hebron.Some believe hiking could hold a key to reconciliation, acknowledging the history of the other.Eitan Bronstein is the Israeli head of an organization that tries to educate his countrymen about how Palestinians see the 1948 war, including a campaign to signpost Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948, such as those in the Ramot Menashe Park.It's important to know,he said,because not to know is to continue the conflict without knowing why there is a conflict.

Clinton seeks Arabs' help on stalled Mideast talks By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 26, 2:59 pm ET

NEW YORK – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Arab nations to take steps toward normalizing relations with Israel and supporting the Palestinians in an effort to help restart stalled Mideast peace talks.Clinton made the case with senior officials from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The session followed President Barack Obama's talks this past week with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.She declined comment on the substance of her discussions, but told reporters afterward that the talks were extremely productive.But officials said the Obama administration wants Arab states to make tangible and credible goodwill gestures toward Israel and provide political and economic support to Abbas to lay the groundwork for a resumption in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, officials say.Among the gestures toward Israel that U.S. has suggesting are opening trade and commercial offices, allowing Israeli aircraft overflight rights and promoting academic and cultural exchanges.Thus far, most have resisted, demanding that Israel first make concessions, including a total freeze on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. That's something Netanyahu is refusing to do despite heavy U.S. pressure.

Even in the absence of such a step, American officials say the Arabs should act.

We don't want to have the perfect be the enemy of the good,said Jeffrey Feltman, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East.We're don't want to wait for the perfect package. It's time to start negotiations now.We hope that the Arabs would find ways to demonstrate to the Israeli public that Israel will be an accepted, normalized part of the region,he told reporters ahead of Clinton's meeting. He added that Arab financial and moral support for the Palestinians also was critical.We would hope that the Arabs would find ways to support President Abbas and his team as they go into negotiations,Feltman said.

Israel seals West Bank for Yom Kippur Sat Sep 26, 2:01 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli army will close off the West Bank from Saturday on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar which starts at sunset on Sunday, a military spokesman said.The closure becomes effective from Saturday midnight (2100 GMT) and continues until midnight Monday (2200 GMT), the spokesman said.The Israeli-occupied West Bank is routinely closed before Jewish holidays for fear of attacks by Palestinian militants.Twenty-one Israelis were killed on the eve of Yom Kippur three years ago when a female suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad blew herself up in a restaurant in the northern port city of Haifa.Since the start of the second intifada in September 2000, the West Bank has been partially blocked off, with Israel authorising only tens of thousands of Palestinians to travel to the Jewish state every day.Israel comes to a standstill during Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, when observant Jews fast during 24 hours and pray for forgiveness for their sins.Israel suspends all television and radio broadcasts, stops all public transport, closes ports and airports, and shuts down entertainment venues.The 1973 Arab-Israeli war, in which some 2,700 Israeli soldiers were killed, began when Egyptian and Syrian troops launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur.

Gulf states say Obama's speech is a basis for Mideast peace Fri Sep 25, 3:47 pm ET

DOHA (AFP) – The Arab states of the Gulf said on Friday that US President Obama's speech this week to the UN General Assembly can be a basis for reaching a Middle East peace agreement.We believe the content of (the president's) speech constitutes a basis for reaching a just and global solution to conflict in the Middle East, Abdulrahman al Attiya, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said in a statement.It is time to recognise a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as capital on territory occupied in 1967,he said.The GCC's members are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.Obama said in Wednesday's speech: We continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements in occupied territory.The US president also called for a resumption of talks between Israelis and Palestinians without pre-conditions on security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees and Jerusalem.

Ex-Israeli PM Olmert makes first court appearance by Marius Schattner – Fri Sep 25, 2:07 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on Friday made his first court appearance on charges of graft, vowing he would prove his innocence.As the first ex-premier to face criminal charges in court, Olmert acknowledged at the arraignment hearing in Jerusalem that he understood the accusations against him. He is scheduled to enter a plea on December 21.Olmert resigned as prime minister under pressure last September after police recommended he be indicted but has insisted on his innocence and told journalists on Friday he was confident the trial would vindicate him.I am innocent, and I am certain the court will clear me of any suspicions,he said.It is not an easy day for me; for the past three years I have been the target of an almost inhuman defamation campaign.The court decided it would start hearing testimony on February 22 and hold three sessions a week.If found guilty, Olmert could be sent behind bars, said justice ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen, without specifying what the maximum sentence would be.Olmert, who turns 64 on Wednesday, was charged in August with three counts of graft. Olmert profile.The 61-page indictment includes allegations of fraud, breach of trust, registering false corporate documents and concealing fraudulent earnings.All the charges concern actions Olmert allegedly took before he became prime minister in May 2006, first as mayor of Jerusalem and later as trade and industry minister.He remained in office as caretaker until late March when hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu, elected in February, was sworn in.

Olmert is accused of unlawfully accepting gifts of cash-stuffed envelopes from Jewish-American businessman Morris Talansky and of multiple-billing foreign trips.He has also been charged with cronyism in relation to an investment centre he oversaw when he was minister of trade and industry between 2003 and 2006.Attorney General Menahem Mazuz dropped three other corruption investigations against Olmert, whom Time Magazine named Israel's most able politician when he became prime minister.In his final months in office, Olmert was subjected to repeated police interrogations, which prompted a wave of calls for him to step down.Nevertheless, during that time he oversaw Israel's 22-day onslaught on the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and wreaked widespread destruction in the impoverished enclave.Israel has been dogged by scandals involving public officials in recent years.Three former ministers have been handed prison sentences and both of the country's most recent former presidents resigned in disgrace, but Olmert is the first ex-premier to face criminal charges.In August, police recommended that current Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted for bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice.Former president Moshe Katsav is on trial on several counts of rape, sexual harassment and indecent acts.And on September 1, ex-cabinet ministers Avraham Hirshon and Shlomo Benizri went to jail, the former for embezzling one million dollars and the latter for bribery and fraud.

Mideast negotiators lauds Obama's initiative Thu Sep 24, 5:40 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS – The Quartet of Mideast peacemakers says President Barack Obama's meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas represents an important step toward the resumption of peace talks.The Quartet — comprising the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia — said it shared the sense of urgency expressed by Obama regarding the comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said some progress had even been made on the thorny issue of Israel's during a series of talks on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.On Tuesday, Obama summoned Netanyahu and Abbas to a joint meeting at the U.N. Obama told the two leaders that too much time had already been wasted and that it's time to resume negotiations.

Netanyahu hits back at Iran Holocaust claims By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 24, 6:17 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS – Waving the blueprints for Auschwitz and invoking the memory of his own family members murdered by the Nazis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his most passionate and public riposte yet to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's questioning of the Holocaust.The documents he brought to the podium of the U.N. General Assembly Thursday also included the protocol of the meeting where the Nazis decided on the Final Solution.Netanyahu tied the Holocaust issue to Iran's nuclear program and Ahmadinejad's rejection of Israel's right to exist, and seemed to tacitly draw a parallel between the world's treatment of Iran today and its failure to act against Hitler in time to head off World War II and save European Jewry.The Israeli leader came armed with original documents handed to him last month when he visited Germany, and launched into an angry denunciation of Ahmadinejad's comments on the Holocaust, most recently in a speech in Tehran last week in which he spoke of twisted propaganda plots to depict Jews as oppressed, and said the Holocaust needed research ... to clear up facts.Holding up the protocol of the 1942 conference at Wannsee, outside Berlin, where top Nazis decided on the destruction of European Jewry, Netanyahu asked: Is this protocol a lie? Then he held up the blueprints including gas chambers and crematoria for Auschwitz-Birkenau, the death camp where more than 1 million Jews were murdered.Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Is this, too, a lie? he asked.Six million Jews were killed during World War II, one-third of all world Jewry. In Europe, nearly every family was affected — including Netanyahu's own.

What of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? he asked.Are those tattoos a lie? My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins, were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie? Netanyahu asked.To those who remained at the General Assembly on Wednesday when Ahmadinejad spoke, he asked: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? In an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, Ahmadinejad turned aside the subject of his questioning of the Holocaust. Instead he argued that since the Holocaust was perpetrated by Europeans, the Palestinians should not have had to pay the price by accepting a Jewish state in their midst.

Netanyahu went on to warn that Iran's nuclear program could evolve into another world catastrophe.The greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction,he warned.The most urgent challenge facing the U.N. is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons,he said.The Iranians deny they are producing such weapons, but Israel, the U.S. and other world powers don't believe them. Iran so far has refused to stop enriching uranium, a process that could be used to make bombs. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat.There has been much speculation Israel might launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear sites as it did against an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. This week, Netanyahu said again that all options are on the table and Israel reserves the right of self-defense.Netanyahu questioned whether the U.N. was up to the task of standing up to Tehran — and strongly denounced its report accusing Israel of war crimes in its winter war against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.(This version CORRECTS RECASTS top with more color, quotes, corrects that more than 1 million died at Auschwitz. For global distribution.)

All-round pessimism after dud Middle East summit Thu Sep 24, 11:40 am ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A cloud of pessimism is suffocating hopes that U.S. President Barack Obama can pull off a miracle in the Middle East by setting negotiations on course for rapid progress toward a comprehensive peace agreement.The New York encounter he arranged between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week produced no more than a schedule of lower-level meetings this week and next, which has only deepened skepticism.

Here is a sample of fairly typical comments:We're in a corner. Obama is running out of steam. He was expected to set the direction in the first six months. But now it's the politics of no choice, of deadlock,said Zakaria al Qaq, foreign affairs director at Al-Quds University.Al Qaq and other commentators say Netanyahu seems content with the status quo, and in no hurry to open talks on a final settlement leading to the creation of a Palestinian state.In Netanyahu's view, the threat of an atom bomb in the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the top priority. In his own words: The Iranian issue overshadows everything.Obama, Palestinian analysts note, has his hands tied by issues of greater immediacy for American voters -- healthcare policy and war in Afghanistan -- and cannot afford to open a new front with the right by taking on Israel in a test of wills.He is captive of the healthcare issue and he cannot move freely, so the Palestinians are captive also,al Qaq said.Abbas wants to allow Obama 3or 4 months more to see what happens on healthcare. But what we are getting is meetings, not negotiations, and the people are not fooled.

Pessimism is not limited to the Palestinians.Aaron David Miller, Mideast counsel to six U.S. secretaries of state, writes in Politico that to all but the terminally obtuse,the chances of a deal right now are about zero.Even if Obama could deliver a freeze on Israeli settlement building in the West Bank that Abbas has again demanded and Netanyahu has again refused, Miller says, the fact remains that the Palestinian national movement is divided and Israel still doesn't know what price it's prepared to pay for peace.Obama may soon have to decide whether to get out of the serious peacemaking business ... or get more deeply involved and consider an unprecedented American effort to bridge the gaps.

SOMETHING DRAMATIC

Palestinians put one positive gloss on New York's meeting, saying it proved Obama's personal commitment to securing a deal.It is clear that Obama will not accept failure of his political investment in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, columnist Talal Okal wrote it the newspaper al-Ayyam.But domestic concerns including the continuing recession, Afghanistan and Iraq would severely limit his scope and it would not be Israel that would feel the impact, said Okal.It's clear that the American administration is about to exercise certain pressures (and) it will be easier to put pressure on the weaker side i.e. the Palestinians.American Jewish groups who advocate a critical approach to Israel over the interminable peace process were also downbeat.There is a mood of resignation, of quiet despair that there is really (no) way out of the conflict,said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the pro-peace group J Street.Ben-Ami said it would take more than incremental diplomatic business-as-usual, along well-trodden paths, to make any change. It needs something more assertive and more dramatic.

James Besser in New York-based Jewish Week wrote that when the late Yasser Arafat and the late Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn 16 years ago there was a sense among most mainstream Jewish leaders that the long Israel-Palestinian impasse could soon be broken.Now there is a new consensus crystallizing that says that the status quo is about the best that can be hoped for.The conflict has reached another impasse, according to Michael Goldfarb in the Weekly Standard. Israel is fixed on Iran's perceived nuclear threat while Abbas and his Palestinian Authority cannot speak for the 1.5 million Palestinian of the Gaza Strip -- which is under the control of Islamist Hamas leaders opposed to recognizing Israel.Obama is talking about having talks, and when talks do get underway, Hamas won't be at the table, and the Palestinian Authority will not be able to speak on their behalf. Abbas can make no deals and offer no concessions without confronting Hamas first, and the Israelis can make no concessions without forcing some kind of confrontation with Iran first.
(Writing by Douglas Hamilton, editing by Jon Boyle)

Gaza rocket lands in Israel without causing injuries Thu Sep 24, 8:50 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired a rocket into Israel early on Thursday, with the projectile landing inside the Jewish state without causing casualties or damage, the army said.A rocket fired from Gaza fell this morning in Israel without causing injuries,a spokeswoman said.Israel launched a deadly offensive into Gaza in late December in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement.The 22-day war ended with mutual ceasefires by Israel and Hamas on January 18 and since then the border between the territory and Israel has remained largely quiet, despite occasional violations by both sides.

Israel hails US call for talks without conditions By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 24, 5:58 am ET

JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister welcomed Thursday President Barack Obama's call for the resumption of Mideast peace talks without preconditions despite Palestinian demands for a halt to new Jewish settlements in the West Bank before any new negotiations begin.In the past, Obama had said all Israeli building must stop on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state. But he toned down his language Tuesday at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York, where he spoke of Israeli steps to restrain settlement activity.And in a speech to the U.N. Wednesday, Obama called for talks to restart without conditions.I'm pleased that President Obama accepted my request that there should be no preconditions,Netanyahu told Israel Radio by telephone from New York.Netanyahu is proposing a partial and temporary slowdown, while Palestinian leaders say there can be no negotiations without a complete halt to Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama criticized Israel's settlement policy, saying that American does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.But the Obama's statement was no more critical of the settlements than previous U.S. administrations have been since Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast War.Netanyahu said the U.S. position was nothing new but said he was pleased Obama did not make the issue a prerequisite for talks.The president of the United States said unequivocally that is not an issue that should prevent the start of negotiations, he said.

Netanyahu added that dropping preconditions to talks along with Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish state were the key to peace in the Middle East. In his U.N. speech Obama supported that goal, along with creation of an independent Palestinian state.At the end of the day those are the most important things for peace,Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu wants Israel recognized as Jewish Thu Sep 24, 3:09 am ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not drop his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state in peace negotiations that the United States wants to revive.I told Abu Mazen I believe peace hinges first on his readiness to stand before his people and say,We ... are committed to recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,Netanyahu told Israel Radio in an interview aired Thursday, referring to President Mahmoud Abbas.I will not drop this subject and other important issues under any final peace agreement,Netanyahu said.U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday brought the Israeli and Palestinian leaders together for the first time since Netanyahu came to power in March and urged them to revive stalled peace negotiations soon.The Palestinians have rejected Israel's demand that they recognize it as a Jewish state. They say Israel should meet its previous commitments to fully halt settlement activity in the occupied West Bank before talks can resume.Netanyahu has rejected this demand and Israeli officials say he has offered a nine-month construction freeze.Netanyahu will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thursday and Israeli officials say his speech will focus on Iran's disputed nuclear program, which Israel deems as a threat to its existence.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted Israel's inhumane policies toward the Palestinians in his speech at the United Nations Wednesday and several delegations walked out after he made apparently anti-Semitic remarks directed at Israel.(Writing by Joseph Nasr)

NETANYAHU ON BLITZER - ON GAZA WE-PROTECTED OURSELVES FROM 10,000 ROCKETS AGAINST US,WHILE ARBS COMITTED DOUBLE WAR CRIMES-FIRING ON ISRAELI CIVILLIANS WHILE HIDING BEHIND THEIR OWN WOMEN AND CHILDREN.WAY TO GO BENJAMIN.AND ON JERUSALEM-NETANYAHU-ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM NEVER DIVIDED.SEPT 22,09 6:15PM

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A big day today, the president of the United States hosting a summit with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders right here in New York.
Let's get right to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He's joining us.Mr. Prime Minister, thanks very much for coming in.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, told our Fareed Zakaria the other day that he had an assurance from the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, that Israel has no intention of attacking Iran.

Is that true?

NETANYAHU: Well, I'm not going to deal with hypotheticals.

I think the important thing is to recognize that Iran's ambitions to acquire or develop nuclear weapons is a threat, not only to Israel, but to the entire world.
Remember, this is the country that sponsored terrorism worldwide. And imagine what would happen if these terrorists had a patron that had -- that gave them a nuclear umbrella, or, worse, actually gave them the nuclear weapon. I think that these are catastrophic consequences. And it's the interests of the entire international community to make sure this doesn't happen.

BLITZER: So, are you willing to repeat what you have been quoted in the Israeli press as saying, that -- quote -- all options for Israel are on the table right now?

NETANYAHU: Well, I'm willing to say that -- what President Obama has said, namely, that all options are on the table is a position we support.

BLITZER: Have you been concerned at all about the Obama administration's diplomatic initiative in trying to reach out to Iran to see if that will secure some results?

NETANYAHU: Wolf, I have spoken to President Obama several times about this. And he assured me that the goal of all his activities, diplomatic and otherwise, is to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.And I think the goal is what counts. And, increasingly, I think people understand in Washington and certainly in -- certainly in Washington and elsewhere, in the major capitals, that the problem of Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons threatens everyone. It threatens world peace in a way that very few events could possibly threaten it.I'm hopeful and I would like to believe that the international community understands that Iran has to be pressed strongly. There are ways of pressing this regime right now, because it's weak. It's weaker than people think. It doesn't enjoy the support of its own people.

BLITZER: How much time is there, Mr. Prime Minister?

NETANYAHU: Whatever time is there, Wolf, it's getting shorter, because Iran is moving ahead.But this is a regime that is -- is susceptible to pressure. It's been exposed for what it is. It tyrannizes its own people. The Iranian people detest this regime, as has been plainly evident in the recent election fraud. But, equally, I think that Iran is susceptible because its economy is susceptible. And pressure -- the time for pressure is now, with or without talks.

BLITZER: Would you act unilaterally, without U.S. support?

NETANYAHU: Well, there you go again asking a hypothetical question.

I -- I would like to believe that the United States and the major powers of the world understand that this threat, that this danger threatens them as well. And you know what? From everything that I have seen and heard, speaking to President Obama, speaking to President Sarkozy this afternoon as well, speaking to all the major -- many of the major leaders of the world, I stand by that assessment. Iran is certainly a grave threat to Israel, but it's a grave threat to international peace. It's a grave threat to America and to everyone else.

BLITZER: I want to read to you what -- some comments that the former national security adviser to then President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wrote the other day. He said this. He said: We,referring to the United States, are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? If they fly over, you go up and confront them, Brzezinski writes. They have the choice of turning back or not.That's a pretty strong statement. What does it say about the current state of U.S.-Israeli relations when a former national security adviser writes something like that?

NETANYAHU: See, now you're asking me to comment on a hypothetical on a hypothetical. I'm not going to do that.But I will tell you that the state of the U.S.-Israeli relations is very good, indeed. I was very pleased with the meeting hosted by President Obama today. For months, I have been calling for such a meeting, to put aside all these preconditions, and get on with the business of talking about peace.
It's very hard to make peace unless you talk about it, although we have been improving conditions on the West Bank, and life is getting a lot better there. But we can do a lot more if we talk to each other. So, on Iran, I have given you my answer. But, on peace, I think the -- the possibilities are there. Let's just get on with it. Let's move. And I think that a good and firm U.S.-Israel relationship is the pivot of that peace and the pivot of security in the Middle East.

BLITZER: I want to get on and talk a little bit about the peace process.

But just give me an answer, if you can, to a sensitive question that a lot of people are asking, especially friends of Israel here in the United States. Who is a better friend of Israel, the former President George W. Bush, who had a very close relationship with you, or the current president, Barack Obama?

NETANYAHU: Let me tell you something about President Obama, because I think this should be fully appreciated.He stood before the entire Muslim world. I don't know if a billion people heard him, but hundreds of millions of people in Muslim countries heard him. And he said: The bond between America and Israel is unshakeable. We are absolutely committed to Israel's security. I think that was a very important statement. And I think every president of the United States has had his contribution to Israeli- American relations and to the friendship between our countries. It is a very strong friendship, indeed. And I appreciated the president's comments in Cairo. And I appreciated his comments today, too.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I hear you saying you trust this president.

NETANYAHU: I think that President Obama's commitment to Israel has been expressed very loud, very clearly by him. And I think this reflects the underlying friendship between our two countries. It's very strong.You know, I walk on the streets of -- well, New York, yes, but also the Midwest and every part of the United States. I have been in every part of it. I will tell you, it's warm -- heartwarming, because I see this tremendous, tremendous effusion of friendship towards Israel as a sister democracy, yes, often embattled by these dark forces of terrorism that embattle all of us.And I think Israel has a terrific friend in America and the American people. And I want the American people to know that you -- they have a terrific friend in Israel. In the Middle East, you don't have that many friends, but we're definitely right at the top of the list.

BLITZER: In the first eight months of his administration, he's repeatedly appealed to you to freeze all settlement activity, and you have declined that request. Did anything change today?

NETANYAHU: I think what is important is that we're moving on to talk peace. And I hope to make peace.Any time we have encountered an Arab leader who wanted to make peace, we made peace. Anwar Sadat came. Menachem Begin of the Likud made peace. The late King Hussein came. Yitzhak Rabin of Labor made peace. I'm telling you that, if Mr. Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, genuinely steps forward and says, we recognize the state of Israel, we're willing to make peace with the Jewish state, just that, the Jewish state, and it will be a peace of the recognition and security, then my government will make peace.I'm no exception, because the people of Israel want peace. And I think people understand that now. As to the question of settlements, I think that raising this condition, something that hasn't happened in 15 years of Israeli- Palestinian dialogue -- nobody put this precondition -- this is just costing us a great deal of time.The issue of settlements has to be discussed at the end or in the context within these negotiations, not before. It has to be resolved. And we're prepared to look into this issue, as into other issues. But we have to talk in order to talk about it. That's obvious. And yet we haven't. For six months, we have been waiting to talk about talks. I say let's put that aside. Let's just get on with it and start the peace process again.

BLITZER: We're hearing from U.S. officials and Palestinian officials that the president gave them, the Palestinians, a commitment that, once the negotiations resume, they would resume where they left off, including such sensitive issues as the future of Jerusalem, allowing Jerusalem to -- at least part of it, to be under Palestinian control.Is that even available to you? Is that even open to you, that Jerusalem could be a subject for these negotiations?

NETANYAHU: Well, you asked me two questions in that question.The first is, will the talks continue where they left off? Well, there were no agreements. I mean, the previous government spoke for three years, but came to no agreements. And we were elected with a clear mandate to provide peace and security. And, of course, we will do that.We will take into account the 15 years of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but we're -- we will be committed to the mandate that we received. And that mandate seeks to arrive at a better future for all of us. That is a future of peace for our children and for future generations of Israelis and Palestinians, and, for that matter, any Arab party in the Middle East. We're prepared to begin negotiations immediately or go anywhere.

(CROSSTALK)

NETANYAHU: Yes.

BLITZER: Are you ready to talk about Jerusalem?

(CROSSTALK)

NETANYAHU: Well, now the -- we have certain views about Jerusalem. I think the fact that it's been united under Israeli sovereignty has ensured that, for the last four decades, all major faiths, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, all monotheistic faiths, have enjoyed the great freedom of worship and access to their religious sites, something that hasn't happened before since the rise of the three monotheistic religions.It's only under Israeli sovereignty that this city has been open to all religions. Jerusalem for us is our internal capital. We don't want to redivide it and see a Berlin Wall in the center of it. So, obviously, that's our position. The Palestinians will raise their point of view. And that's clear. But we will talk about these things, but my position is well- known.

BLITZER: You know this United Nations commission, which just came back with a scathing report suggesting that Israel, your military, committed war crimes or something close to that, crimes against humanity, perhaps, even, during the fighting in Gaza.And I know you strongly disagree, but I want you to react to that United Nations report.

NETANYAHU: Now you're being a diplomat.I strongly disagree? I think this is preposterous. It's absurd. Israel was rocketed, pummeled for eight years by thousands of rockets that came from Gaza. We vacated all of Gaza, hoping that this thing would stop, and they fired not one rocket, but thousands of rockets, after we left Gaza.So, what's a country to do? I mean, what would you do if thousands of rockets fell on -- Where are you talking from, Wolf, Washington, right? -- Washington, D.C., or any part of the United States? You know what the United States would do.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: The argument, though, Mr. Prime Minister, was -- the argument in this U.N. report is that you overreacted, and, in the process, you killed a lot of civilians.

NETANYAHU: We overreacted, did we? Well, let me tell you, after millions -- I million, a million or so of our people were under rocket fire, progressively larger and larger circles of rockets falling on our cities, we did what no -- no -- what every reasonable country would do. We tried to get at the rocketeers, those terrorists firing those missiles and rockets who placed themselves, embedded themselves in homes and schools and mosques, and you name it.And we tried to target these people. We even sent them SMS text messages, telling the Palestinian civilians, please get out of harm's way, cellular phones, you name it. So, we did everything possible to minimize the loss of innocent civilian lives.And yet the Hamas that -- actually was committing a double war crime, firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians. That's a double war crime. We're -- they're the ones who sort of get a free bill out of this biased U.N. report, and Israel, that is defending itself, is accused.

BLITZER: All right.

NETANYAHU: So, the terrorists are exonerated. The victims are accused. That's -- that's an upside-down world. And I think this does grievous harm to the battle against terrorism, because the terrorists are basically being told, you get a free ride. All you have to do is fire at a democracy from -- from built-up areas, from residential quarters, and you will get a clean bill of health. And I think it does a great disservice to peace, too, because we're asked to take risks for peace. The international community says, if you take risks for peace, we will support your right of self- defense. And yet we did just that. We vacated Gaza in the hopes of -- that this would advance peace.And when we're rocketed with thousands of rockets and missiles from the places we vacated, people say Israel is the war criminal.

BLITZER: All right.

NETANYAHU: Come on. I mean, this is absurd.

BLITZER: If there is a trial at the International Court and the accusation is that Israel committed war crimes, or crimes against humanity in Gaza, will you cooperate with that?

NETANYAHU: Well, that's -- the question is, will any serious country cooperate with it? I took note of the fact that the leading democracies that were in this U.N. commission, they -- they opposed this. They were against this mandate, because it looked like a kangaroo court in the first place, where Israel was basically hanged, drawn, and quartered morally and given an unfair trial to boot right at the start of these proceedings. I think this is wrong. But understand this. It's not only we who will be damaged. It's you, too. I mean, American pilots, NATO pilots, let alone Russia and other countries that are fighting terrorists, are going to be put on the dock, too, because it's said that you cannot fight terrorists. It means that all the terrorists have to do is put themselves in a residential quarter, and they receive immunity. And that's not something that any country fighting terrorism can accept. And I don't think you can accept it either.

BLITZER: Mr. Prime Minister, there was an op-ed article written in The New York Times back in July by an Israeli journalist named Aluf Benn, who writes for the Haaretz newspaper. And, among other things, he said that President Obama is ignoring Israel, has not visited Israel, even though he's been to several Arab countries, and he's not reaching out to the Israeli people, the way he's reaching out to the Arab and Muslim world. He hasn't given any interviews, as far as I know, to the Israeli press, for example, or Israeli television.Do you agree with that assessment?

NETANYAHU: I think that people should not rush to judgment. I -- I think that these are two new administrations, my own new government and the new government in Washington. We have found a way to communicate. I think we have resolved a lot of the issues between us. We can have differences. That happens among the best of friends. It even happens in our own families.But I think there's a -- there's a growing closeness that I have found. What people don't know -- and I -- and I'm not referring to the public diplomacy -- but I want to tell you something about private diplomacy. There's virtually not a day that goes by that the Obama administration and my own government don't communicate in a very -- on a very senior level on very important matters in a very confidential and respectful way.And I say that advisedly. I'm choosing my words carefully. There's barely a day that goes by without that happening. So, that should give you some indication of the growing -- of the closeness of that relationship. And it's getting better, for sure. There's no question about it.

BLITZER: Because there was a very explosive charge in that same article on the op-ed page of The New York Times.And I will read it to you, because I want -- give you a chance to respond. It caused a huge commotion. This is what Aluf Benn wrote in The New York Times.In Mr. Netanyahu's narrative, the president has fallen under the influence of top aides, in this case, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and David Axelrod, the White House adviser, whom the prime minister has called -- quote -- self-hating Jews.Is that true?

NETANYAHU: No. No, it's not. I never -- I never called them any such thing. And I don't think that. I have known Rahm Emanuel for some time. I just met David Axelrod today, in fact. And I think they're American patriots. They think of what is important for the United States. And they certainly bear no enmity to Israel.They probably want the best for Israel, too. So, I think that this is -- and we can have, as we say, occasional differences of opinion. But I never called them those things, and I don't think that, and I'm -- I'm sorry that anyone has given credence to this kind of nonsense. It's just...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Did you reach out to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and reassure them that that -- that that was a lie?

NETANYAHU: Well, we immediately denied it. And, yes, we did reach out to them, of course.

BLITZER: Did you personally call them?

NETANYAHU: I didn't personally call them, but I had my aides communicate this to the White House as quickly as we could.

BLITZER: All right, let's move ahead and take and look and see where the situation goes from here. You have now met with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Are there going to be more direct meetings with you and the Palestinian leader without the United States in the room?

NETANYAHU: I hope so. And I think we should.I said to Mr. Abbas today, listen, we're old hands. We have had many meetings in the past when I was prime minister during my first tenure, and I met him. And I respect him. And I think there is a lot we can do together. Look, we have -- you know, we have lifted all these roadblocks in the West Bank, checkpoints. I've opened the Allenby Bridge on the Jordan River to allow the inflow of goods into the West Bank.So life is getting better. The IMF is talking about a seven percent growth rate in the West Bank.And guess what, Wolf?

I think we can top that. I think -- this is what we're doing. I mean we're easing those restrictions and opening up passage, even though there's a certain security risk involved, because I think that prosperity is good for peace. I don't think it's a substitute for a political peace, but I think it really enables it because young Palestinians see there -- there is a future there. I mean they -- they have jobs. They're -- there are investments. There are buildings sprouting out in Palestinian cities like Ramallah and Jenin and not missiles, as in Gaza, but, you know, high rises, apartment blocks, office buildings.This is what I'd like to see. I'd like to see this dynamic of peace, prosperity and security. And if we meet, then we can -- we could get a lot more of this going and that's good for us. It's good for the Palestinians. It's good for peace.

BLITZER: Mr. -- Mr. -- Mr. Prime Minister, a year from now, will there be an agreement, a peace treaty, if you will, between the Israelis and the Palestinians?

NETANYAHU: Well, I -- I think -- I don't want to set a timetable on it or a stopwatch, but the sooner we get going, the sooner we'll get an agreement. If there is a willingness on the part of the Palestinians to remove the main obstacle to peace. And the main obstacle to peace is the persistent refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state -- the nation state of the Jewish people.There are non-Jews living there and they have equal rights. The Arab citizens of Israel vote in the Knesset. They're represented in every form of life and have political rights. But -- equal political rights. But Israel is the state -- the nation state of the Jewish people. And I think if we're asked to recognize the Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people, then the least we expect from the Palestinians is to come right out and say yes, you know, it's over. Yes, we accept the state of Israel...

BLITZER: But if the Palestinians do that...

NETANYAHU: ...and this (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: If the Palestinians do that, Mr. Prime Minister, are you ready to bite the bullet and make the tough concessions that have to be made? And everybody seems to know what the final agreement is going to look like.Are you ready to make those territorial concessions and go back, sort of, close to the '67 line?

NETANYAHU: Well, I think we need to make sure that Israel can defend itself and defend the peace. Because even if the Palestinian leaders make that simple statement that they so far haven't made, that they recognize the Jewish state -- and I think that's imperative for peace -- it may take a long time for this to be internalized by the Palestinian people that have been subjected repeatedly to very harmful propaganda against Israel.So we have to make sure that we can defend ourselves, that we don't have these Palestinian territories become the sites for the -- the launching of thousands of missiles and rockets, which is exactly what happened to us from the other areas we vacated.We need a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. That's the winning formula for peace.Now, look, any time Israel was faced with an Arab leader that genuinely wanted peace, whether Anwar Sadat or -- or the late King Hussein, Israel made peace. And if President Abbas takes this forceful step, deciding that he wants to be a Sadat and not an Arafat, then he will find in me a partner for peace. And believe me, the Israeli people are yearning -- yearning is not -- praying, hoping that we have such a Palestinian partner on the other side.

BLITZER: Prime Minister Netanyahu, thanks very much for joining us.And good luck to the Israelis, good luck to you, good luck to the Palestinians.We'll be covering this story every step of the way.We appreciate it very much.

NETANYAHU: Thank you, Wolf.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHUS SPEECH AT UN - VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44HkjBDQz_k&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofIwsB7xDm8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gkjEUjK4as&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPEdIWa5H9k&feature=player_embedded

AHMADINEJADS HATE SPEECH AGAINST ISRAEL AT THE UN SEPT 23,09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EBgqgIWuoc#

Here's the full transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly Thursday, in which he responded to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial by holding up dcoumentary evidence, blasted the Goldstone Report and urged the international community to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons:http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/09/24/1008134/netanyahus-un-general-assembly-speech

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie? Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state.What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet. What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances – by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.

The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom? Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism? Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world? The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted. For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing – absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Delegates of the United Nations,Will you accept this farce?

Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense? The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us –my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,All of Israel wants peace.

Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them. Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the confirmed unteachability of mankind, the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them. Churchill bemoaned what he called the want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the unteachibility of mankind is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

3 TUSSLE OVER MIDEAST PEACE

Obama, Netanyahu, Abbas Tussle Over Mideast Peace By TONY KARON – SEPT 23,09

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, President Barack Obama used his first-ever address to the U.N. General Assembly to try and reverse the impression that his ambitious Middle East peace effort had suffered a reversal at the hand of Israel's hawkish Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. I am not naive,Obama told the gathered world leaders. I know this will be difficult. But all of us must decide whether we are serious about peace or whether we only lend it lip service.Many a jaded commentator saw Obama's Tuesday meeting with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a symbol of surrender to Netanyahu's refusal of the U.S. demand that Israel halt all construction on land conquered in 1967. Instead, Netanyahu offered a partial and time-limited freeze and appeared to force the President of the United States to back down. For Abbas, the handshake with Netanyahu orchestrated by Obama was viewed as a humiliating climbdown from his refusal to talk to the Israelis until they implemented that settlement freeze. (Read about the photo-op peace process.)

Netanyahu, briefing the Israeli media after the talks, suggested that the Palestinians had also caved in to his demand for a reopening of talks without preconditions on an agenda the two sides would determine in discussions. But Abbas insisted that any talks would be based on the full range of final-status issues established by previous agreements - Netanyahu has publicly ruled out negotiating on two of those issues, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital. (See pictures of life in a West Bank settlement.)Abbas appeared to win Obama's backing in the U.N. speech, which made clear that the President has not accepted Netanyahu's position on the precursor issue of a settlement freeze even if he's decided to move on to the final-status negotiations.America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,the President insisted on Wednesday. That could be read as a response to the damage Obama's credibility has suffered in the Arab world as a result of being forced by Netanyahu to retreat on the settlement issue, which had been widely viewed as a test of Israel's peacemaking bona fides and had been a centerpiece of Obama's Cairo outreach speech in the spring. But there was an even stronger challenge to Netanyahu in Obama's declared plan to relaunch negotiations that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem.He also spoke of the goal of those negotiations as being the establishment of a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967.(See a video of Mike Huckabee's three-day trip to Israel.)

While many analysts focused on Tuesday's meeting as an Obama admission of defea on settlements, some were more optimistic. Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy believes that the Administration's pivot on the issue smartly boxed Netanyahu into a negotiating process the Israeli leader would have preferred to avoid, by turning his own argument against him: if, as Netanyahu insists, settlements should be an issue for negotiation rather than a precondition because their fate will depend on future borders, then why not move straight to final-status negotiations over those borders?
Final-status talks were something Netanyahu had hoped to dodge. Not only does his right-wing coalition government refuse to countenance negotiations over refugees or Jerusalem, but also, the Prime Minister, much of whose political career has been built on resisting the Oslo peace process, has sought to promote incremental improvements in Palestinian life, particularly the economy, over the search for a final two-state agreement. Obama isn't buying it. According to Israeli accounts of Tuesday's meeting, the U.S. President scolded Netanyahu and Abbas, declaring We've had enough talks. We need to end this conflict. There is a window of opportunity, but it might shut.And according to these reports, Obama insisted that the negotiations will not be started from scratch but will instead be based on the previous agreements established through the Oslo process. In other words, Jerusalem and refugees are on the table, and Israel is expected to show up.

Obama is still talking tough, then, but having watched him climb down from his settlement-freeze demand - and the rebuff from moderate Arab states to the President's call for them to make tangible gestures toward normalization of ties with Israel - most analysts are waiting to see what actions back his words. Reports from the talks suggest the Administration will summon the two parties to Washington next month for talks under U.S. auspices on the full gamut of final-status issues. But Netanyahu may have his own ideas and may be buoyed by his success in resisting the settlement-freeze demand. Indeed, the Israeli Prime Minister's domestic popularity has surged as a result of his defiance of Obama. Abbas, however, who had already been reduced to an increasingly marginal figure by the failure of his negotiating efforts over the past decade to win any significant gains for the Palestinians, suffered further political damage by even showing up for the handshake. But even the relatively hawkish Israeli commentator Shmuel Rosner warns that Israel should restrain itself from declaring victory just yet. True, Obama had to draw down his overeager demands from Israel. But it is also true that Netanyahu, not long ago, had to reverse his opposition to a two-state solution and publicly declare that his goal is similar to the one espoused today by Obama. True, Abbas was dragged to the summit only days after insisting that he will not come to any meeting unless settlement construction is frozen first. But it is also true that Netanyahu, the head of the right-wing Likud Party, is one of the first Israeli Prime Ministers to agree to some form of settlement freeze.

Levy, too, believes it is too early to count out Obama's effort. America will have to recognize that in the Israelis and Palestinians, it is dealing with two deeply dysfunctional polities,he argues.The parties simply cannot achieve a peace agreement of their own volition. And the outcome is too important for them, and for America, to leave it at the mercy of the two electorates. So at some point, I think, the Administration is going to find an appropriate moment to present and pursue an American plan for a comprehensive peace.

No meetings between Israelis, Palestinians planned By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 23, 6:23 pm ET

NEW YORK – Israelis and Palestinians said Wednesday that their envoys would meet with U.S. officials but not with each other, cementing the impression that a U.S.-sponsored meeting between their leaders had fallen flat.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said there would be no follow-up session with the Israelis because the two sides hadn't bridged the divides that have prevented them from resuming talks.

It's not happening because we agreed to continue dealing with the Americans until we reach the agreement that will enable us to relaunch the negotiations,Erekat said.The Palestinians refuse to restart talks until Israel freezes settlement construction in territories the Palestinians claim for a future state. They also want talks to restart where they left off before breaking down earlier this year, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to do.In an NBC interview Wednesday, Netanyahu called Israeli settlements bedroom suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And he told the Israeli news web site, Ynet, that under an accord, Israel would not withdraw from all territory it occupied during the 1967 Mideast war.Previous (Israeli) governments did not agree to return to 1967 lines and my government certainly would not agree to do so,he said.Failing to win compromise after months of U.S. mediation, Obama summoned Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to a meeting Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Obama admonished the two men — who met for the first time since Netanyahu became Israel's leader in March — to stop wasting time and to start making peace.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel would dispatch envoys to meet with U.S. officials in Washington, but there were no plans now to meet again with the Palestinians.He said, however, that it was Israel's sincere hope that we will see the restart of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.Early on in his presidency, Obama had demanded an all-out halt to settlement construction. He had hoped to defuse the historic impediment to peacemaking and encourage the Arab world to make overtures toward the Jewish state that might lead to a normalization of relations.

But Netanyahu refused to freeze construction, agreeing only to slow settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem for a limited time. He said Israel would proceed with already approved plans to build thousands of apartments and would not curb any construction in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 War and later annexed.The international community does not recognize that annexation, nor does it sanction West Bank settlements.Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's hardline foreign minister, told Israel Radio on Wednesday that the Obama meeting was a victory for Israel because it took place in the face of resistance to U.S. pressure by the Netanyahu government.The Israeli government kept its promises to the voter by showing it was not necessary to surrender and give in,he said.Netanyahu has been interviewed multiple times on American television since meeting with Obama and Abbas, using those platforms to argue that Israel needs to continue building to accommodate population growth in existing settlements.The settlers who are there have to live. You can't freeze life,he said.Nearly half a million Israelis have moved to the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the past 42 years.

Continued Israeli settlements in West Bank not legitimate: Obama Wed Sep 23, 2:57 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The United States does not view continued Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as legitimate, President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly Wednesday.We continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements (in the West Bank),he said in a maiden speech to the 192-member body.The US leader made the remarks a day after holding inconclusive talks in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.Saeb Erakat, chief Palestinian negotiator, welcomed Obama's comments.We are encouraged and highly appreciate President Obama's statements on settlements being illegal and calling to an end of the occupation that started in 1967,he told AFP.

Netanyahu did not react to Obama's comments on settlements.I commend this important speech of Obama and his call to renew the peace process without preconditions,the Israeli premier however said.I commend his unequivocal support of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.This rapprochement between the US and Israeli viewpoints is the result of many contacts we have had, and of course the expression of good will by both sides,he added.The Obama administration has demanded a complete freeze to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, land the Palestinians want to turn into a future state. But Israel has so far balked.Tuesday, Abbas also made clear that Israel must halt settlement construction.We insisted on the need for Israel to respect its commitments, notably an end to settlement construction in all its forms, including natural growth,Abbas told Palestinian journalists.Obama meanwhile told the Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday to stop stalling and open talks on a comprehensive deal to end an endless cycle of conflict and suffering.Final status issues include the fate of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the borders of an eventual Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Israeli FM: Summit a victory for settlement stand By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 23, 9:05 am ET

JERUSALEM – Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday that the summit of Israeli, U.S. and Palestinian leaders proved Israel could successfully fend off international pressure to freeze West Bank settlement construction.Palestinian officials expressed disappointment with Tuesday's meeting in New York. The U.S. appeared to back down from a demand, expressed forcefully in recent months, that Israel cease all construction in West Bank settlements.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in New York with President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It was Netanyahu's first meeting with Abbas since taking office in March. Beyond a cool handshake, there were no signs of progress toward the U.S. goal of restarting peace talks.The Palestinians have said they will not resume negotiations until Israel halts all construction in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both areas and the Gaza Strip, all captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future independent state.Speaking to Israel Radio, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the fact that the meeting took place showed Israel's firm stand against a settlement freeze was effective.This government has shown that you don't always need to get flustered, to surrender and give in, Lieberman told Israel Radio. What's important for me is that this government kept its promises to the voter ... and the fact is that this meeting happened.Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had previously demanded a full halt to construction in the settlements.

But at Tuesday's meeting, Obama did not explicitly call for a settlement freeze, and George Mitchell, the White House Mideast envoy, said afterward that the administration does not see a resolution of the settlement showdown as a precondition for resuming negotiations.Palestinian officials said they were disappointed Obama had softened his stance and urged him to reassess his position.
This shows the negative intentions of the Israeli government,said Jibril Rajoub, a top official in Abbas' Fatah movement.The Americans should review their policies toward cooperating with the Israeli government, because its actions pose a danger to regional stability, are against the American government's policies and contradict international law.Israeli media largely portrayed the summit as a futile exercise, while acknowledging Netanyahu's success in rebuffing the Obama administration's previous pressure on settlements.There has never been such a hollow ceremony,Nahum Barnea, a prominent Israeli columnist, wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily.While Netanyahu might feel that he won,he should remember the lesson that the Middle East gives all its winners: In this region, the short-term winner loses in the long term, Barnea wrote.Seeking to simultaneously appease the U.S. and his hardline coalition government, Netanyahu has agreed to slow settlement construction for a limited time. He has said construction will continue on some 3,000 housing units, most of which are already being built.

Palestinian PM cites support for statehood plan By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 22, 9:21 pm ET

NEW YORK – Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in an interview Tuesday that he has won broad international support for his plan to ready the Palestinians for statehood within two years.However, Fayyad sidestepped the question of whether the Palestinians would unilaterally declare statehood at the end of that period if a peace deal with Israel is not in place. He said that decision would have to made by the Palestine Liberation Organization and others when the time comes.With peace efforts deadlocked, Fayyad's two-year plan to build up and reform governing institutions may well offer the Palestinians the only practical prescription for moving closer to statehood.Israel and the Palestinians remain far apart on what it would take to resume peace talks. The gaps were highlighted during Tuesday's first meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, hosted in New York by President Barack Obama.While Netanyahu and Abbas faced off at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, Fayyad lobbied for his plan in a meeting with donor countries on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.Donors have funneled billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians over the years, and Tuesday's meeting was meant to assess the aid program and make up pledging shortfalls.The huge sums have been less effective than donors had hoped, in part because they were spent to soften the economic damage stemming from Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement, rather than on development projects.

Fayyad's program, unveiled a month ago, proposes beefing up or reforming government ministries and institutions of the Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government in the West Bank. The plan also envisions several major projects, such as an international airport.The West Bank remains under Israeli military occupation and the Gaza Strip is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas. But Fayyad said this should not keep Palestinians from working for their state.Part of what this is intended to do is to break that psychological barrier associated with having ... statehood being talked about for so long now, with it not happening,he said.However, Fayyad would not say how he expects to get around major obstacles to his vision, such as Hamas rule in Gaza or the need to get Israeli approval for major projects.

Fayyad was appointed by Abbas as prime minister two years ago.Since then, the Western-educated Fayyad, a respected economist, has ended vigilante rule in former militant hotspots and cracked down on Hamas' West Bank operations.In recent months, the Palestinian economy in the West Bank has seen a modest upturn, after years of shrinking, in part because of an easing of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement and the influx of foreign aid. The economy in Gaza has been crippled by a two-year border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas takeover.

Obama warns Israel, Palestinians to move on talks by Gavin Rabinowitz – Tue Sep 22, 7:30 pm ET

NEW YORK (AFP) – US President Barack Obama on Tuesday curtly told Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stop stalling and open talks on a comprehensive deal to end an endless cycle of conflict and suffering.Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations,Obama said, his frustration evident, as he gathered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas for a three-way summit.Obama said final status talks on forming a Palestinian state must begin, and begin soon,in his most personal intervention yet in Middle East peace making, which he has put at the center of his foreign policy agenda.The US president officiated as his guests, meeting for the first time since Netanyahu took office in March, performed an awkward handshake for the cameras before the talks at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel.Obama announced that he had asked both sides to send negotiators back to Washington next week for more discussions on relaunching the stalled dialogue to be brokered by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.He directed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to report back on how the talks were going by mid-October.

All sides had downplayed prospects of movement in the summit, so it was no surprise that there was little obvious evidence of progress.Both parties seek the relaunch of negotiations as soon as possible although there are differences on how to proceed, Mitchell said.Abbas called on Israelis to impose a freeze on settlement construction, which the Palestinians have made a condition of going back to the table.We insisted on the need for Israel to respect its commitments, notably an end to settlement construction in all its forms, including natural growth,Abbas said told Palestinian reporters.Netanyahu called on the Palestinians to drop their demands, saying it was holding up progress.It's precisely those preconditions on negotiations that have stymied our progress so far, Netanyahu said in an interview later with ABC news.Everybody said they're not placing preconditions. I'm not and I hope the Palestinians don't. I think we have to move on with the business of peace, he said.Despite the apparent deadlock, Obama called on both sides to show urgency.

My message to these two leaders is clear,he said.We have to summon the will to break the deadlock that has trapped generations of Israelis and Palestinians in an endless cycle of conflict and suffering.Obama said Netanyahu's hawkish government must show real action on halting settlement construction and said Palestinians need to stop anti-Israeli incitement and move forward with negotiations.He also appealed to Arab states which have so far not acted on his request to make conciliatory gestures to entice Israel to the negotiating table. Final status issues include the fate of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the borders of an eventual Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.Obama, who vowed, unlike ex-president George W. Bush, to engage in the Middle East early in his presidency, had hoped a deal on opening talks would already be sealed after exhaustive diplomacy by Mitchell.Facing a flurry of challenging problems at home, and a clutch of brewing foreign crises, the president is taking something of a risk with his fungible political capital by holding the meeting at all.Some observers, key members of the Bush administration included, argue that the symbolism of the presidency should only be brought to bear when a critical moment is in sight -- not merely as a way of kick-starting talks.But Obama's aides say that only with consistent, focused US engagement at a high level will Israelis and Palestinians ever move towards a consistent process of dialogue.

Shiite financier investments embarrasses Hezbollah By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 22, 6:00 pm ET

TOURA, Lebanon – A Mideast version of the Bernie Madoff scandal is threatening to tarnish Hezbollah's reputation in Lebanon for being incorruptible, and the powerful Shiite militant movement faces calls to bail out small investors to keep its position from being undercut.Hundreds of Lebanese sold land or drained their retirement savings and handed over hundreds of millions of dollars to Salah Ezzedine, a Shiite businessman with connections to Hezbollah.The anti-Israeli Hezbollah is on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations and maintains the strongest military force in Lebanon. For its Shiite followers, however, it is seen as a trusted quasi-government that provides social services and aid. The group gets substantial funding from Iran and paid out millions to rebuild the Shiite heartland in south Lebanon after a devastating 2006 war with Israel.Hezbollah has said it had nothing to do with the alleged swindle and has so far resisted pressure to rescue the investors.Nevertheless, many investors put their trust in Ezzedine, principally because of the financier's connections to Hezbollah and because of his reputation as a pious, respectable Shiite. Ezzedine's investment company promised as much as 40 percent in annual returns, according to residents of this southern Lebanese village.

Ezzedine and his partner, Youssef Faour, have been arrested on suspicion of cheating investors out of perhaps up to $1 billion, prosecutors say. Earlier this month, they were charged with fraudulent embezzlement, a crime punishable by 15 years in prison. Alleged victims included well-off Shiites but also smaller investors who sold land or pulled out savings to bundle the cash and give it to Ezzedine.Lebanese are comparing to the swindle by Madoff, now serving a 150-year prison sentence for masterminding a multibillion-dollar scheme that burned thousands of investors.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah earlier this month denied the group had any connection with the financier. A parliament member from Hezbollah reportedly lost money with Ezzedine and is suing him — a sign, the group's supporters say, that it, too, was victimized.Still, Hezbollah is trying to ward off any blow to its status among loyalists. Nasrallah spoke recently by video link to a group of investors in the south to hear their complaints and reassure them, although he made no promises of compensation, according to an investor who lost money, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the meeting.The losses among people of all economic levels have stunned Shiites, who hold an abiding faith in Hezbollah's integrity and incorruptibility. While many still vow loyalty to the movement, they feel it should support its followers and pay compensation.That is what we hope, Wajih Shour, an investor from Toura, told The Associated Press. He said he paid several installments — including one of $150,000 — into the scheme. He refused to say the total amount he invested with Ezzedine but showed two checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that were given to him by one of Ezzedine's companies as a guarantee on his investment. The checks bounced because there was no money in the accounts, he said.The 47-year-old Ezzedine was well-known for his religious works and charity in the southern port city of Tyre and surrounding Shiite villages. He had personal connections with Hezbollah figures — as any major businessman in the south would. He owns the Dar Al-Hadi Publishing House, one of Lebanon's most prominent producers of Shiite religious books that also prints books written by Hezbollah officials, and the children's TV channel Al-Hadi.Among his charitable works was largely financing a giant mosque in the center of his hometown of Maaroub. A sign at its entrance says it was inaugurated in 2005 under the auspices of Nasrallah. A nearby municipal stadium was also financed by Ezzedine and was named Stadium of the Resistance and Liberation Martyrs.Judicial officials said Ezzedine had major business interests, particularly in oil and iron industries, in Eastern Europe and suffered substantial losses when oil prices fell last year. They added that Ezzedine tried to make up for his losses by taking money from Lebanese investors. They have not detailed what Ezzedine did with the money or where the funds are now.In Maaroub, a town of about 4,500 people, no one was home at the financier's large villa surrounded by a garden. Residents refused to say anything bad about Ezzedine, insisting he is a decent man.Rida Dbouki, 75, has known Ezzedine since he was a little boy and describes him as a man who did all the good for this village.Asked about the losses, the grocer said, We don't know how all this happened.

Another Maaroub resident, Hussein Khalil Khamis, 78, recounted how Ezzedine paid for his wife's diabetes and high blood pressure medications that he could not afford — amounting to $200 a month.Only one man in Maaroub, who identified himself only as Abu Ali because of the sensitivity of discussing the scheme in Ezzedine's hometown, acknowledged he invested a small amount of money, was promised 40 percent in annual return and never got it back. He would not say how much he invested. He said dozens of residents sold plots of land or took their retirement funds and invested them.

Investors in Maaroub and the nearby town of Toura told the AP that those who wanted to invest $100,000 and above could go directly to Ezzedine's office in nearby Tyre. Those who had amounts less than that gathered their money and gave them to a person they trusted to invest it for them.Fadi Ajami, owner of a hardware shop in Toura, said he and a friend each invested around $500,000, plus another $3 million bundled from dozens of his neighbors. Now he's trying to pay them back from his own funds, returning $390,000 so far after selling property and using his savings.Ajami proudly proclaims himself a Hezbollah supporter — his office is decorated with pictures of its leaders, including Nasrallah and its military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed by a car bomb in Syria last year.What really hurts is that those people (Ezzedine and Faour) used their connections with Hezbollah as a cover to gain people's trust. Hezbollah had nothing to do with them,Ajami said.

Palestinians want support for WTO observer status bid Tue Sep 22, 11:20 am ET

GENEVA (AFP) – The Palestinian territories are seeking support in their bid for observer status at the World Trade Organisation, a first step towards full membership, the Palestinian economics minister said Tuesday.We are here to lobby and request a status of an observership in the general council and all associated bodies of the WTO. We do that because we dream of an eventual full accession to WTO, said Bassim Khoury.We believe this is needed because this could be an engine for reform and an engine of statebuilding,he added.Khoury said meetings with 32 diplomats from the United States, European Union, China and Japan, have yielded very nice feedback to the Palestinians' bid.Now it is time to see if the music translates into action or only stays as music,he added.With the exception of the Vatican, observers have to start accession negotiations within five years of gaining observer status.All 153 members of the WTO would have to approve an accession bid before a country can join the trade body as a full member.

Will Abbas's rising clout be hurt by Netanyahu meeting? By Ilene R. Prusher – Tue Sep 22, 5:00 am ET

Jerusalem – Heading into a US-brokered meeting Tuesday morning with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is facing deep pessimism from his own people about the prospect of peace – and a severe attack on his credibility by Hamas.President Abbas's popularity among Palestinians had risen significantly in recent months, potentially giving him more clout as a negotiator. But scathing criticism from Hamas over his agreement to meet Mr. Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York could eat into those gains.In a statement sent to reporters in Gaza, Hamas said it was truly shocked that Mr. Abbas accepted President Barack Obama's invitation for the talks, given that Abbas has insisted for months that he would not meet Netanyahu without a freeze on settlement expansion in the West Bank.This means that Abbas has yielded to Israel and the US and retreats from his stance,said Hamas, calling Abbas's decision a submission to the Zionists.The Islamic movement, which has controlled the Gaza Strip for over two years, called on Abbas to immediately stop his political rush and stop yielding to Zionist dictations,adding that he should first achieve Palestinian unity.A Palestinian reconciliation deal to bring Hamas and Fatah together has remained elusive and Abbas is taking a risk by agreeing to a high-profile summit in the absence of the settlement freeze sought by Obama since his June 4 policy speech in Cairo. The Washington Times on Tuesday reported that the Israelis had offered a temporary freeze for six to nine months that would exclude 2,500 units already approved for construction, but such a deal has not been made public and could not immediately be verified.

Abbas gained in polls against Hamas leader
But recent polls have given Abbas a reason to believe that most Palestinians are behind him and will likely accept his going out on a limb to talk to Israel in the name of achieving Palestinian statehood.Abbas is certainly stronger, and the public gives him more support now than it did for some time. But the fact that he feels stronger is giving him courage that he didn't have before, and because of that, I think he'll be tougher vis-a-vis the US and Israel,says Khalil Shikaki, director of The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), a Ramallah-based polling organization.He'd been accused of being a weak president, but now that he has legitimacy and has Fatah behind him, perhaps he feels he can stand up to the American and Israelis and say no to them.PCPSR found in its most recent poll – conducted in mid-August – that support for Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) he leads was rising while support for Hamas was sinking. Since the organization's previous poll in May, there has been a significant widening in the gap between the level of support for Abbas and for Ismail Haniyeh, the former prime minister in a joint Hamas-Fatah government that dissolved after Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza in 2007. Specifically, 52 percent supported Abbas and 38 percent supported Mr. Haniyeh in the most recent poll. Their previous support figures were 49 percent and 44 percent, respectively.The organization says the shift is likely due to the popular Fatah congress held in Bethlehem in August and improving security conditions in the West Bank. There is also a noticeable decrease in public perception of the existence of corruption in PA institutions under Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad,the PCPSR said in its report on the August survey.The survey included Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and their numbers roughly reflected the proportion of Palestinians in each of those areas. All surveys were done in person.

Palestinian opinion hard to categorize
But looking at the bigger picture, there's an overwhelming pessimism among Palestinians about the ability of their leaders to get to a peace deal with Israel. Sixty-nine percent of those polled, including West Bankers and Gazans, said they believe that the chances for establishing an independent Palestinian state next to Israel in the next five years are slim or nonexistent.Moreover, some of the positions that Israel and the US are asking Abbas to adopt will be hard to sell to the Palestinian public. For example, only about half of Palestinians say they will accept a mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people and Palestine as the state for Palestinian people. A majority of those polled – 61 percent – say they oppose a peace deal based on the Clinton parameters and the Geneva Initiative.The reference is to talks under former President Bill Clinton in 1999 and 2000 and to an unofficial blueprint for peace developed by prominent Israelis and Palestinians, including former negotiators in the Oslo peace process.

Both drafts presented similar solutions to a variety of difficult issues, including Jerusalem, refugees, and borders. A large number of Palestinians expressed opposition to those plans because of their dislike of solutions presented on individual issues. For example, only 24 percent of Palestinians say they would support the idea of a Palestinian state with no army, a drop from the 36 percent figure when the poll was first held in 2003.The polls show how hard it is to categorize the Palestinian public's views. On some matters, Palestinians remains closer to the viewpoint of Hamas than that of Abbas, explains Dr. Shikaki, referring to the Palestinian leader by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen. On the question of violence, most Palestinians are with the Hamas position and not Abu Mazen's,adds Shikaki.They believe that violence has been helpful in achieving their national rights. But on the issue of two-state solution, they do take a position that is closer to Abu Mazen.

Arabs criticize Obama, too
Mr. Obama has come under fire from Arab commentators for pressuring Abbas to attend the meeting despite US envoy George Mitchell's failure to secure promises of a settlement freeze from Israel.Obama bent down to all of Netanyahu's pressures and withdrew from the battle of the settlements that he had engaged in the last period, wrote Abed-El-Bari Utwan, the longtime editor in chief of the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper in London. Obama put [Abbas] in an embarrassing situation by making him attend a meeting with Netanyahu after having announced to his people that he would only do such a thing after Israel commits itself to the settlement freeze.They left Philadelphia to live in the West Bank? The Allons simply wanted more space at the right price. Read about how they and other Israeli settlers see their decision to live at the center of a global dispute.

Carter says Israel must stop building settlements By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer – Mon Sep 21, 10:23 pm ET

HARRISONBURG, Virginia – Israel must stop building settlements in the Palestinian territories if peace is ever to be achieved in the Middle East, former President Jimmy Carter said Monday night as he received an award at a Virginia university for his humanitarian efforts.As President Barack Obama has made clear, the key factor that prevents peace is the continuing building of Israeli settlements in Palestine, driven by a determined minority of Israelis who desire to occupy and colonize east Jerusalem and the West Bank,Carter said.Carter, a Nobel Peace laureate, spoke to a crowd of 6,500 as he and former first lady Rosalynn Carter received an award from James Madison University's Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence.Carter, 84, who helped bring peace between Egypt and Israel with the Camp David Accords when he was president in the late 1970s, has maintained a strong interest in the Middle East. He said he has visited the region three times within the past year.Carter said he's convinced that withdrawal of Israeli forces from Arab territories will dramatically reduce any threats to Israel.All 22 Arab countries have offered diplomatic recognition and full trade and commerce if Israel will withdraw from occupied territories,he said.

And withdrawal is necessary, Carter said.

The alternative to two states is one nation in the same area, within which Arabs will soon comprise a clear majority,he said.This will mean the end of a Jewish state or else an apartheid system within which Palestinians are dominated and deprived of equal rights.Carter and fellow Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa were among a delegation of veteran statesmen who visited Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last month to support Israelis and Palestinians seeking peace.In June, he went to Gaza and met with leaders of Hamas, which the United States, European Union and Israel have refused to deal with directly because they consider it a terror group.Tutu was the first recipient of the James Madison center's nonviolence award in 2007, and the Carters are the second. It was presented on the United Nations' International Day of Peace.Sushil Mittal, director of the Gandhi Center, said the award recognizes the Carters' commitment to humanitarian efforts.They understand and exemplify the importance of tolerance and compassion for other nations and people from different backgrounds,he said in a statement.After leaving the White House in 1981, the Carters established a nonprofit center in Atlanta dedicated to resolving conflicts and promoting health worldwide.

Israel blames Palestinians for Mitchell's peace failure Sat Sep 19, 1:40 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Saturday blamed the Palestinian Authority for the failure of US envoy George Mitchell to reach a deal for the resumption of stalled peace talks.

The Palestinian Authority is the one that is preventing the resumption of the peace process by making conditions that it has not made in the past,foreign ministry spokesman Yossi Levi said.Mitchell wrapped up a mission to the Middle East on Friday after failing to secure an Israeli freeze on settlement expansion to pave the way for the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks stalled since December.He was hoping to secure the deal and arrange for a meeting at next week's UN General Assembly between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.Palestinians have been demanding a halt to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem, as a condition for resuming talks with Israel.Since the new government was formed five months ago, Israel has always said it was ready to resume, without preconditions, the peace process and meetings with Palestinian Authority representatives,Levi said in a statement.Earlier on Saturday, Abbas had blamed Israel for Mitchell's failure to make any breakthrough, during separate talks in Egypt with President Hosni Mubarak and in Jordan with King Abdullah II.The road is now blocked,Abbas told reporters in Cairo, adding that the onus was now on Israel.

There is no more work (for Mitchell) with the Western or Palestinian sides because we are complying with all our duties. The focus has to be on the Israeli side,he said.Abbas and King Abdullah II later urged the international community to intervene and put pressure on Israel, saying in a statement released by the palace that settlements are the key obstacle to achieving progress.The international community must bear its responsibilities and prevent Israel from undermining the efforts that are under way to push for serious and effective negotiations,the statement said.

During the meeting in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba, Abbas and the Jordanian king also insisted that the United States must have a leading role in trying to revive the peace process.Mitchell had been aiming to secure an Israeli moratorium on settlement construction that would be acceptable to the Palestinians and enable the resumption of peace talks.Over the past weeks, Netanyahu has rebuffed repeated US calls to freeze settlement construction.Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since December when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip.

Abbas meets Mubarak after Mitchell trip Sat Sep 19, 11:17 am ET

CAIRO (Reuters) – Failure to agree a settlement freeze inhibits the resumption of peace negotiations with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Egypt's Hosni Mubarak on Saturday, according to state media.Abbas visited Cairo days after U.S. envoy George Mitchell and less than a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stopped by to brief Mubarak and other Egyptian officials on efforts to resume stalled peace talks.Mitchell returned to Washington on Friday with little to show for his shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Arab capitals.Israel has blamed Abbas for the impasse, saying Palestinian negotiators showed no flexibility while Israel did.Netanyahu, whose right-wing cabinet includes strong pro-settler elements, had offered a nine-month freeze on building in the West Bank -- longer than the six months Israel previously indicated it would consider, but less than the year-long pause Mitchell had sought.Abbas has said he would not agree to renewed negotiations with Israel unless it agreed to a total freeze on settlement expansion and stressed that the United States must push Israel to comply with the 2003 road map call for a cessation of all settlement-building.An Abbas spokesman said the Cairo meeting -- which lasted an hour and a half -- was called to coordinate Arab and Palestinian positions ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, which starts in New York on Tuesday.The participants, which included Egypt's foreign minister and intelligence chief and the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, also discussed intra-Palestinian developments, Egypt's state-run news agency MENA said.Negotiations could not resume because Israel would not consider including Jerusalem in any settlement freeze, nor would it stop building in settlements to accommodate natural growth, MENA quoted Abbas as saying.Some 300,000 Israelis live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, and another 200,000 live in Arab East Jerusalem, areas home to around 2.5 million Palestinians seeking independent statehood. Israel has annexed East Jerusalem as part of its capital in a move not recognized internationally.(Writing by Alastair Sharp).

US raps UN Gaza report By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press – Fri Sep 18, 5:09 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Friday sharply criticized a U.N. report alleging Israeli war crimes in its Gaza war earlier this year, ending nearly a week of muted reaction to findings already rejected by Israel.The State Department said the conclusions of a U.N. commission headed by South African justice Richard Goldstone were unfair to Israel and did not fully address the role of the militant Palestinian group Hamas in the conflict. And it said the U.S. objected to a recommendation that alleged crimes be referred to the International Criminal Court.

Although the report addresses all sides of the conflict, its overwhelming focus is on the actions of Israel,spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.While the report makes overly sweeping conclusions of fact and law with respect to Israel, its conclusions regarding Hamas' deplorable conduct and its failure to comply with international humanitarian law during the conflict are more general and tentative,he added.The report, released on Tuesday, faulted Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza, saying it used disproportionate force in the offensive. About 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week conflict. Israel charged that Hamas was to blame, saying they placed rocket launchers and forces in crowded neighborhoods.

The report also called Hamas' firing of rockets at Israeli civilians a war crime.

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the findings, saying Israel's security forces were exercising their right to self-defense. The United States had until Friday been largely silent, limiting its response to expressions of concern about unspecified content and the panel's mandate.That mandate was given to Goldstone and his colleagues by the U.N. Human Rights Council earlier this year, before President Barack Obama decided to end the Bush administration's policy of snubbing the body and join it.Kelly said Friday that the United States wanted to keep discussion of the report within the council and had very serious concerns about a recommendation that it be raised at other bodies, including the International Criminal Court.We note in particular that Israel has the democratic institutions to investigate and prosecute abuses and we encourage it to use those institutions,he said.U.S. officials are also concerned that Arab states and others might attempt to raise the report at next week's United Nations General Assembly session. Kelly said it was important for the world to remain focused on trying to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.We hope efforts related to the Middle East at the Human Rights Council and other international bodies will look to the future and how we can support the goal of a two-state solution,he said.